7 Reasons Why Girls Ain’t Easy

“It’s full of easy girls.” ~ A friend, disdainfully, while discussing a local dive hot-spot.

‘Easy girls’ has to be one of my least favourite terms in the English language. I find it offensive on so many levels that I hardly know where to begin, but here goes:

1. This is not the 1950s

As you know, in the past, back when it was usual for us be financially dependent on men, there were two types of women. There were the ‘good girls’, who made men wait for sex until they were married. And there were the ‘bad girls’, who men ‘used’ for sex, and then deserted when they felt that it was time for them to settle down with one of the good girls.

In 1956 my paternal grandmother was one of those ‘bad girls’, and was left despite the fact she was expecting a baby. In order to preserve her reputation she was sent away for the duration of her pregnancy, and when my dad was born he was placed for adoption.

His adoptive parents were always open with him about where he came from. They told him that he was special because other parents had to settle for whatever they got, whereas they got to choose the baby they really wanted.

Nevertheless, the damage caused to him by the burden of this knowledge seems at least partly responsible for the harm that my father has in turn done to me.

But thankfully those days are gone.

Young women no longer need to keep up a veneer of respectability for fear of losing all hope of financial security. We can be our own people, with our own money, and our own careers. We know that we can marry whoever we choose, rather than whoever will have us, because men no longer hold all the cards. In the UK at least we can even marry each other instead if we prefer.

And so sexual mores have changed. We don’t have to follow Elizabeth Taylor’s example and get married every time we meet someone with whom we might like to have sex.

There is absolutely no reason for us to continue to accept such outdated judgments.

2. Why is nobody making these girls coffee and a fry-up?

Having said all that, it saddens me think that chivalry might dead. I mean, when did it become normal for a guy to see a young woman, who’s paralytically drunk, and think it’s a good idea to take her home and have sex with her? Something that often seems to happen at said bar, and yet I’m not hearing the men being slated for being predatory.

When I used to be a party regular, and someone was clearly off their face, it was standard to fill them up with coffee, put them to bed, and then take them out for a full cooked breakfast the next day to soak up their hangover. Does that not happen anymore?

And another thing, the guys who go to bed with these women must know that she isn’t going to remember anything about it in the morning. Who actually wants to be remembered as the most forgettable sex they ever had?

3. If you play games then you’ll probably end up with a player

At the heart of the idea of some girls being easy is a belief that sex is something that men want and that women must withhold, or at least make them work for, to keep their respect.

This results in relationships where the young woman has to pretend that she isn’t wanting to get busy just as much as her gentleman friend, until they’ve reached a stage where she feels that he’s sufficiently invested in the relationship that he’ll still respect her in the morning.

Now, leaving aside the fact that anyone who is likely to decide that they no longer respect you; especially if it’s because you happened to find them as irresistibly attractive as they professed to have found you, is a douche bag, and as such undeserving of your attention. This approach to sex involves a considerable amount of game playing. And as the saying goes, if you play games you’ll probably end up with a player.

Or even worse, someone who’s playing The Game. This guy is unlikely to respect you in the morning, no matter how long you make him wait. He doesn’t respect you now, he’s just using you to hone his PUA technique.

It’s far better, in my opinion, to be upfront about what you want, and to aim to get it. The grounding for any healthy relationship, after all, is being able to be honest about what you want and how you feel. There are too many people who miss out on chances to be happy because they’re afraid to express their real desires, and are unable to make truly intimate connections as a result.

4. It encourages an unhealthy attitude towards sex

The idea that some women are easy is a value judgment, and as such it feeds into the sense of shame that some people feel when it comes to sex – the view of sex as somehow seedy or dirty, rather than an enjoyable and healthy activity to be engaged in by two willing and equal partners. This is both a saddening and a damaging attitude.

Having hang-ups about sex can cause difficulties in relationships and creates a barrier to intimacy between couples. After all, nobody wants to feel like their partner is ashamed to be sleeping with them.

It shouldn’t be hard to say to somebody you presumably care for, ‘I want you to touch me here’, regardless of where ‘here’ happens to be. It’s really nothing to be embarrassed about.

Feeling shame when it comes to sex keeps people from embracing their sexuality, having enjoyable sex lives or ever feeling as delightfully sexy as Kate Moss appears to in this picture:

Which is, well, a terrible shame, really.

5. Attitudes towards sex are deeply personal

As part of the Sex and the City generation we know that there can be as many attitudes to sex as there are couples having it.

Some people favour the carpe diem approach of having sex with whoever they fancy, however they fancy, whenever they fancy. Where as others feel that they need to be in love, to make love. Somewhere in between are those who are happy to enjoy friends with benefits, or a few casual encounters, while they’re waiting for ‘the one’ to finally come along.

Whatever your approach to sex, most of us feel that it’s something deeply personal, something that goes to the heart of our identities. A perceived affront to our sexual choices can cut just as deeply as an attack on our morals or religious values.

We should respect each others sexual attitudes accordingly, and refrain from attacking others who make different sexual choices in the same way as we should when we’re discussing religious beliefs, political views, or our ideas about raising children.

6. It’s, quite frankly, none of our business who anyone else chooses to sleep with

I’ve always been firmly of the opinion that there’s a very good reason why sex usually happens behind closed doors.

So long as neither party is being unfaithful, and nobody is being harmed – at least not any more than they would wish to be – then the only people who have any reason to be concerned with what happens are the parties themselves. If they want to be having sex with somebody they’ve just met then that’s really only their business.

Anyone else should butt out and keep their judgments to themselves.

7. You have no business making anyone else feel small

The label ‘easy’ is a pejorative which is often applied to young women who are quite obviously insecure already. Being pointlessly labelled in this way can hardly help. In fact it will probably add to their list of anxieties.

And yet we have absolutely no business in making others feel unhappy about themselves. The words of Frank Barron are well heeded – you should never take another person’s dignity; it is worth nothing to you and everything to them.

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9 thoughts on “7 Reasons Why Girls Ain’t Easy”

This. THIS is excellent. Our society has changed a LOT in the past 50-60 years, so why are old terms still be throwing around to describe women whether they have a little, a lot, or no sex? Even people with good intentions can be a little clueless when it comes to this stuff and carelessly describe someone in a totally inappropriate way, and those people need to be told that the words they’re using are outdated and hurtful.

I know what you mean. Whenever I hear people say things like this, I do kinda thing, ‘Sorry, what? Do people really still think things like that?’.
But then something like the Ched Evans case comes up and you realise, yes, there are still quite a lot of people who really do.

This is a brilliantly written, intelligent post. To properly respond to all the points you raise would take another complete post (maybe i’ll do that soon!) but in short, i agree with everything you say. There is a terrible hypocrisy and double-standard around sexual behaviours and attitudes, and to me this all stems from millenia of women being treated as second class in every aspect of human life.
If you are going to judge people at all, do so on the basis of their personalities and opinions, do not filter this through the prism of their gender.

OK, I’m stopping there before i rant too much but again, brilliant post.

Thank you! I’m so glad you liked it. I was little bit nervous about posting it, as it’s not the sort of thing I’ve ever written before. I’d be interested to read your post about this.

And you’re quite right. You can tell far more about a person’s character from looking at whether or not they kick puppies, help little old ladies across the road, or fiddle their tax returns, than you can from how long they need to know someone before they sleep with them.